Place:Hvidovre, København, Denmark

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NameHvidovre
Alt namesValbysource: Family History Library Catalog
TypeMunicipality
Coordinates55.65°N 12.483°E
Located inKøbenhavn, Denmark
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog


the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Hvidovre is the main town in Hvidovre Municipality, Denmark. The town, a suburb of Copenhagen, is about 10 km southwest of the capital's center. It is the 2nd biggest suburb of Copenhagen, only beaten by Frederiksberg.

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History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Hvidovre has been inhabited since prehistoric times. In 1929, a 3,500-year-old sword from the Bronze Age was excavated in Hvidovre.

A farm, Ovre (Aworthe), was located in the area in about 1170 when Esbern Snare gave it to Sorø Abbey that later passed it on to Bishop Absalon. A church was built during the Romanesque period. The name Hvidovre, meaning White Ovre, refers to the colour of the church, which was built in white chalk, as opposed to the one in Rødovre, Red Ovre, which was built in red brick.

Hvidovre did not become a real village until the mid 1600s. In 1682 Hvidovre consisted of 18 farms and 14 houses without any agricultural land. Back then only a few crops were grown in the area. In 1635 it consisted of the following: 12% rye, 58% barley and 30% oat.


Some of the land closest to the border with Copenhagen was converted into allotments in the 1920s. At the end of World War One, Copenhagen suffered from a severe housing shortage. Many of the farmers in Hvidovre saw it as an opportunity to make a substantial profit by selling their land off in small lots. 3,226 out of the 3,899 lots that existed in Hvidovre in 1924 had been sold off since 1918.[1] The buyers were typically workers from Copenhagen and the houses often built out of Chevrolet or Ford boxes, which had been used in the shipping of car parts from America. The boxes were cheap and delivered on the site.[1] Others lived in already existing summer houses. The settlement was not legal but by 1923 accounted for 34% of the population in the municipality.[1]

In May 1945, a few days before the end of World War II, a gun fight took place on the street of Hvidovrevej between Resistance fighters and members of the HIPO Corps.

Population

At the turn of the 20th century, Hvidovre was still a quiet rural community. In 1901, the parish still only had a population of 500. But It quickly began its growth from there. In 1930 Hvidovre had a population of 6,523. It had then nearly doubled in 1940 to 12,014 people just before World War II. Fortunately, Hvidovre did not stop growing because of World War II. It again doubled its population in just 10 years with just over 23,000 people in 1950. In 1960 Hvidovre had a population of 38,411. From there Hvidovre stopped its fast growth, as did much of the rest of the country. And now in 2020 Hvidovre has a population of 53,527.

Urban development planning

The progressive urban development also had an impact on urban planning. When the so-called "Finger Plan" - Sketch proposal for Regional Plan for Greater Copenhagen - was published in 1947 with its proposal to gather the future urban development in the capital area along railway lines, it was also assumed that Hvidovre could grow and in the long term form a cohesive suburban area together with Avedøre and Brøndbyøster. The finger plan led to the adoption of the Urban Regulation Act in 1949, which presupposed the establishment of an urban development committee for the Copenhagen area to plan the future urban development in the Greater Copenhagen area in the form of a so-called urban development plan.

On 6 October 1949, an urban development committee for the Copenhagen area was set up, which on 2 May 1951 published "Report concerning Partial Urban Development Plan no. 2 for the Copenhagen area's urban development area". As Hvidovre was already partially developed and was directly adjacent to areas with S-train service to the north and south, the city was designated as one of the places that was suitable for urban development in terms of traffic, and under the impression that the area was developed in the form of sewerage, and that the urban development was assumed not to be in conflict with conservation and outdoor interests, as a green corridor around Harrestrup Å was kept free and assumed to provide access to the coast at Køge Bay, the entire designated urban development area adjacent to Hvidovre was placed in the inner zone, that means it could be built on when and if, the municipal council wanted it.

The original urban development plan was later updated with "Report regarding Partial Urban Development Plan no. 9 for the Copenhagen area's urban development area" from 1972, which for Hvidovre, however, only confirmed the previous plan and urban development took place.

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